 | Areytos or songs and ballads of the South |  |
III.
How vain the memory which would shed
But tears o'er Kosciusko's name!
Far better if they fell in shame
For country lost, and honor fled;
All but the cruel memory dead,
That in the past triumphant glows,
On many a page of living fire,
When peerless Sobieski rose,
And with great soul and mighty blows
Pluck'd Europe from the Moslem's ire!
Ah! sad reproach, such glorious tale,
For those who only wake to wail!
But tears o'er Kosciusko's name!
Far better if they fell in shame
For country lost, and honor fled;
All but the cruel memory dead,
That in the past triumphant glows,
On many a page of living fire,
When peerless Sobieski rose,
And with great soul and mighty blows
Pluck'd Europe from the Moslem's ire!
Ah! sad reproach, such glorious tale,
For those who only wake to wail!
Call up these spirits! Let them be
His, first, who made all Europe free—
Great Sobieski! Next, the pure,
True soul these vacant souls deplore—
The man who strove, with countless odds,
For Poland's own domestic gods!
What think they of these men who weep,
Crawl, crouch, in foreign service creep,
And wake to wail, and wail to sleep?
Their spirits, if on earth, would crave
A future like the past to brave;
Not, craven-like, remain to boast
Existence, to their nation lost;
But in the fierce, unequal strife—
The last sad struggle—still assert
That liberty, more dear than life,
That makes the life's life of the heart!
His, first, who made all Europe free—
Great Sobieski! Next, the pure,
True soul these vacant souls deplore—
The man who strove, with countless odds,
For Poland's own domestic gods!
What think they of these men who weep,
Crawl, crouch, in foreign service creep,
And wake to wail, and wail to sleep?
Their spirits, if on earth, would crave
A future like the past to brave;
306
Existence, to their nation lost;
But in the fierce, unequal strife—
The last sad struggle—still assert
That liberty, more dear than life,
That makes the life's life of the heart!
The proper tears, by valor given,
Are blood-drops wrung from Freedom's wo,
Pure, sacred, in the sight of Heaven,
And blessing those for whom they flow!
Not woman's offering—weakness all—
That loathes—yet drinks—its cup of gall,
And downward, step by step, to save,
Sinks from the dastard to the slave;
Then, when the dregs of life are run,
Through all its foul and base degrees,
Drained to its vilest, bitterest lees,
Weeps for the deeds—it might have done!
Are blood-drops wrung from Freedom's wo,
Pure, sacred, in the sight of Heaven,
And blessing those for whom they flow!
Not woman's offering—weakness all—
That loathes—yet drinks—its cup of gall,
And downward, step by step, to save,
Sinks from the dastard to the slave;
Then, when the dregs of life are run,
Through all its foul and base degrees,
Drained to its vilest, bitterest lees,
Weeps for the deeds—it might have done!
| Areytos or songs and ballads of the South | |